


Let the Moment Seize You

by Abagail_Snow



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Canon Compliant, Coming of Age, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 15:31:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5054143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abagail_Snow/pseuds/Abagail_Snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta's adolescence told through a series of vignettes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let the Moment Seize You

_Age 5_

The shirt he wears is too big and the buttons have all been reattached with different color threads. It's been passed down through both of his brothers, as has all his clothing. Peeta's small for his age though, and the shirts and slacks appropriate for school are all about three sizes too big. 

"Little runt," his mother calls him as she struggles to tighten the belt around his waist to keep his loose pants from slipping off his hips. The fasten on the buckle pricks her finger and she winces and sucks on the irritated blemish before it can bleed.

"You know what happens to the little ones in the Games," his brother Rye teases from the breakfast table, then dramatically slashes a finger across his throat.

His mother flashes Rye a warning look and the boy quickly cowers behind his toast and jam.

"He could grow," she says, running a comb through Peeta's unruly curls a few times, before tossing it aside with a resigned sigh. "And if he doesn't, at least we tried."

Peeta's lip begins to tremble. He doesn't really understand the Hunger Games. Only flashes of images he's seen in the town square when the viewing was mandatory. The kids were always cold and shivering and scared. "I don't want to go to the Games, Mama."

"Well there's nothing I can do about that," she says dismissively, straightening the collar on his shirt. "Now go eat something, school starts soon."

Peeta climbs into his chair at the table and picks up his toast with both hands. The bread is hard and he has to chomp down with all of his might to take a bite. "I don't like this," he says.

"In the Games, if you don't eat your breakfast, they slash open your stomach and shove the food inside," Rye says, grinning wolfishly.

"Stop it!" Peeta screams.

Rye makes growling sounds as he tugs on his own belly then pretends to stab himself with his toast.

"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" Peeta continues to yell over his brother's teasing.

"Enough!" Peeta's mother shouts, slamming a fist against the table. "Finish your breakfast, now!"

Peeta drops his toast on his plate. "I don't want it," he says stubbornly.

"I said finish it."

"No!"

She picks up the bread and holds it in front of his face, but Peeta keeps his mouth sealed.

"Peeta!" she warns, and he only shakes his head. 

Her eyes are on fire now, the same way they spark when her temper is about to boil over. Instantly, Peeta regrets talking back, but it's too late to turn back. She fists his hair and jerks his head back, shoving the bread in his mouth when he cries out.

"Bite," she says firmly.

"I don't want it," he wails around the stale bread.

She forces his jaw shut and covers his mouth so he can't spit it out. "Eat!" she says.

Peeta thrashes in his seat and pounds his tiny fists on the table as the jagged edges cut the inside of his mouth and his mother grips his hair so tightly he's convinced it'll all come out as a clump in her fist.

"I should just let you starve!" she says coolly. "Hope you learn to appreciate what we give you, because that's all you're getting for the rest of the week. Bread and water, you hear?"

Peeta debates biting her hand, but thinks better of it. He doesn't need a spanking on top of this.

He forces himself to calm down and finishes his stale toast.

"Was that so hard?" his mother asks, wiping her hands on her apron after she releases him.

He scowls at her back and swipes his arm under his nose to wipe away the tears and snot. Rye sits silently beside him, staring at his bread between nibbles as if he were invisible.

"What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Sorry Mama," Peeta mumbles.

The door at the top of the staircase swings open, and Peeta's father steps through it.

"You ready, boys?" he says.

Simeon, Peeta's eldest brother is nine now, which means he starts classes later in the day, and spends his mornings helping out at the bakery. Peeta wishes he was nine too, so he could be downstairs with his father during breakfast instead of with his mother up here.

"They can walk themselves," his mother says. "It's only down the road."

"I know," his father says, unfastening his apron and moving to wash his hands in the sink. "I've got some business in town."

"What kind of business?" 

"Nothing important," he says. "Besides. It's Peeta's first day," he says ruffling the boy's hair. "Someone's got to make sure he finds the right classroom."

His mother looks at his father skeptically. "Of course," she says. "Wouldn't want him accidentally chasing after a Seam girl."

His father goes to kiss her cheek, but she turns her head away icily. 

"Better hurry up," she says. "You'll miss your chance to see her."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm not stupid," she says in a harsh whisper. She snaps the lid to Peeta's lunch pale closed and drops it into his backpack before pushing it into his father's arms. "It's been ten years, John. Give it up."

"Come on boys," his father says, still staring down their mother. "You'll be late."

Peeta can't keep up with his father and brother as they walk briskly up the street. He grasps the straps of his backpack just below his armpits and moves his feet as quickly as they'll carry him, but it's still several paces behind the others.

Rye goes straight into the school building when they reach it, while Peeta's father guides him towards a group of smaller kids out front where they're being sorted between four classes. 

His father seems distracted, his eyes scanning the crowd almost wistfully before he sighs. Peeta looks up at him, and his father flashes a slight grin and squats beside him.

"See that little girl?" he says, pointing at a girl who's even smaller than Peeta. She wears a red plaid dress and two black braids hanging off her shoulders. Peeta nods. "I wanted to marry her mother, but she ran off with a coal miner."

Peeta gives the girl another look over. She's all angles with sharp bones and skinny knees and dark, shallow cheeks. Nothing like Peeta and his brothers.

"A coal miner?" he says. They all live in the Seam in broken down shacks with tiny windows and no heat. "Why did she want a coal miner if she could've had you?"

His father smiles at him warmly and pinches Peeta's round cheek. "Because when he sings... even the birds stop to listen." Peeta frowns at this explanation. "Someday you'll understand," his father promises him.

"Do the birds stop for Mama?" 

"Mama doesn't sing."

"She yells," Peeta says.

"Yes, she scares all the birds away."

"Is that why you married her?"

His father chuckles. "Someday you'll understand," he repeats.

Peeta's name is called and he's placed in the same line as the girl in the red plaid dress.

Peeta's desk is right beside the window, which overlooks the meadow, and he spends the morning staring outside and doodling pictures of fluffy white clouds and of birds perched in the branches of the giant oak tree.

"Who knows the Valley Song?" the teacher asks after she's announced they'll be starting the day with music assembly.

Peeta rolls his eyes.  _Everybody_  knows the Valley Song. He goes back to his drawing, humming along quietly with the whistling of the birds.

The girl with the braids raises her hand so quickly, she nearly jumps from her seat.

"Katniss, how about you?" their teacher says, guiding her towards a stool at the front of the classroom and helping her to stand on it.

The little girl clears her throat and throws her shoulders back to puff out her chest. She sings loudly, belting out each note with practiced ease.

When she finishes, Peeta takes extra care to listen for the birds outside, and although he can still see them lining the branches, they've all fallen completely silent.

He looks back at the girl in the red plaid dress -- Katniss, in complete awe. At her sparkling gray eyes and her gentle, pretty smile.

And he understands, without a shadow of a doubt, just as his father had told him. He understands.

He's going to marry that girl someday.

......

_Age 6_

"Sit still!" his mother says, squaring his shoulders and bowing his head forward so that his chin is touching his chest.

"It itches!" Peeta says, his fingers curling into the arms of the chair to keep from scratching his scalp.

The sharp scrape of scissors snaps behind his ear and he watches a lock of his golden hair fall to the floor. "I told you to stay away from those Seam kids," she says. "Disgusting, vile things. Now we'll all probably have it."

It's cold outside, late fall, and Peeta's in the backyard, stripped to only his underwear so he doesn't contaminate anything else. "It wasn't a Seam kid. It was Kenny Reiling. He had bugs in his hair, he showed me."

She chops some hair close to the base of his neck and his skin snags painfully between the blades. "And where do you suppose he got it?" she says. "Now go wash up."

Peeta groans. He's already taken two showers. "There's no warm water left," he says.

"I don't care," she says. "I'll spray you down with the hose if I have to." She tips the chair to force him on his feet. "Go!"

Peeta scrambles up the steps, jabbing an elbow into his brother's gut when he tauntingly scruffs his buzzed hair.

"Cut it out!" Peeta grumbles, shoving his brother aside.

"You're right," Rye says, wiping his hands on his tee shirt. "Don't want to catch your Seam critters."

"I don't have Seam critters!" Peeta shouts and slams the bathroom door behind him for good measure.

He climbs onto the stool in front of the sink to look into the mirror, tugging at a few clumps of hair that are longer than the rest.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," he mutters to his reflection. "Disgusting, vile thing."

He turns on the faucet and cups his hands beneath the frigid water to wet his hair then yelps at the cold, bouncing on his toes before he scoops up another handful.

"All clean!" he tells his mother sweetly when he steps out of the bathroom.

She inspects his head briefly, keeping him at an arms length, then shoos him towards his bedroom. "Get dressed for dinner," she tells him.

......

_Age 7_

Peeta crouches low on his feet, dodging quickly to pounce on a toad that is wading in the shallow stream bed, huffing when it leaps away at the last second.

"Come on Peet!" Simeon calls out from further up the trail. "And wipe off your shoes. Do you want Mom and Dad to know where we've been?"

Peeta jogs up the hill and uses a patch of grass to clean his feet. "How much farther is it?" 

"On the other side of that hill," he says.

"What's the Hob again?" 

"It's a shop where you can buy anything you want. You don't even need money for it. Mister Everdeen told me about it."

Peeta's ears perk at the name and he wonders if Katniss will be there.

"What're you going to get?"

"A knife," Simeon says.

"Why?" says Peeta. "We have knives in the kitchen."

"Not one of those little dull ones. A sharp one, like the type they have in the Games."

"Why do you need one of those?"

"Because I'll be twelve next summer. I could get reaped."

"Rye says that merchant kids don't get reaped."

"He's wrong. It could be anyone of us. Our names go in the bowl too, and if we don't prepare ourselves, we're as good as dead."

Peeta trips over a stick and it breaks with a loud snap. Last year was the first time he could stay awake through required viewing. Before that, he'd always fallen asleep in his father's arms while they watched from the town square, always waking to the sound of a Seam woman shrieking when their son or daughter inevitably met their end. He never saw it, only heard their cries. But last year he watched a Career slice the throat of a Seam boy from ear to ear. He doesn't want to picture Simeon doing that.

"You wouldn't kill anyone, would you?" Peeta says, desperate to erase that image.

"If I had to," Simeon replies. "You don't get it Peeta, you're too little, that's why they don't let kids like you into the arena."

"They don't let anyone in," Peeta argues. "They make them go."

"Well if they make me, then I'm going to be ready," Simeon huffs as they crest the hill.

Below, the trees thin to reveal a collapsed warehouse that's bustling with activity. Wheelbarrows full of goods roll by, chased by laughing children too thin to be so full of energy.

Inside the Hob is dark, lit only by the missing planks in the roof, forming beams of light that shimmer with the dust and soot thick in the air. How they'll hide the filth from Mother, Peeta can't even begin to figure out.

Simeon ruffles through a few bins filled with rusted metal. "All junk," he mutters. "How do you think they do all that hunting on the other side of the fence?" he asks Peeta, even though he knows he doesn't know the answer. "Must have something somewhere."

Peeta's not listening to his brother anymore though, because right now, all he can see is Katniss Everdeen, sipping on a bowl of soup while her father bounces her little sister on his knee.

"Here we are," Simeon says, pleased.

"I want a knife too," Peeta decides.

"You'll hurt yourself."

"Will not!" he says. He'll protect her.

......

_Age 8_

"Can I sleep with you?" Peeta says, tugging on the end of Simeon's blanket. 

"No," he mumbles into his pillow.

"I can't sleep," Peeta says, nudging at his brother's shoulder. The older boy doesn't budge. "Do you really think you'll get reaped tomorrow?"

Simeon sits up and hastily rubs at his tear stained eyes. He sniffles loudly, erasing the last signs of his crying. "Don't be silly, my name's only in there once."

"But you could," Rye says, looking down at them over the edge of his bunked bed. Usually Peeta hates Rye for saying things like that, but for once his voice is somber, like he's actually worried. "What if your name ends up on the top somehow? On top of all the other names?"

Simeon pushes back his blankets, making enough room for Peeta to climb in beside him, and soon Rye is climbing down the side of the bed to join them.

"What'll you do if you get picked?" Peeta says.

Simeon looks pale. "I don't know," he says, settling back against his pillow. "Try not to think about it, okay? Get some sleep."

Peeta curls into his brother's side with Rye on the other and they hold him tightly, crying into his sleep shirt.

In the morning, when Simeon's name isn't called, they hold each other again through the next night too.

......

  _Age 9_

People like Peeta when he's funny. It's not hard to crack jokes. He just says what's on his mind. Like how his mother's cooking tastes like pig feed. Which it does. Because he's pretty sure she feeds him and the pig the same thing. But when he makes friends with some boys at school, he doesn't like being funny anymore.

They're all like Rye, thinking it's funny to make fun of the Seam kids, the girls especially, when they didn't do anything to ask for it.

"Anyone want this apple?" Gregory Sanders says, tossing a shiny red one in his hand.

The apple tree in the Mellark's backyard is sagging with apples this season, and the sight of one alone makes him want to puke, so he shakes his head.

"I know who may want it," Gregory says, standing from the bench. He tosses the apple as he walks, and Peeta doesn't like the way he's smiling while heading directly toward a Seam table.

"You girls hungry?" 

Peeta chases after him. "Cut it out," he says in a low voice.

"I'm just being generous!" he reasons. "These girls look like they could use an apple, only problem is I've only got one."

"Quit it!" Peeta hisses.

"And you know what the Capitol does when they don't got enough for everyone. They make you fight for it. So how about it?" Gregory says, shouting loud enough now to draw attention. "You girls up for a game?"

Peeta swats the apple from his hand and shoves Gregory. Hard. The boys go tumbling to the ground, fists swinging in an unpracticed frenzy. When they're finally pulled apart, they're sent home early and his mother hits him properly, leaving welts that Gregory's little hands could never muster.

The next day at school though, Delly Cartwright and Madge, the Mayor's daughter sit beside him.

"That was a nice thing you did, Peeta," Delly tells him from behind crimson cheeks.

Peeta blushes and rubs at his swollen eye. "It was a stupid thing to do."

Nobody thinks Gregory Sanders is funny anymore.

......

_Age 10_

Peeta shuts off the mixer and begins scooping batter into the greased pans. He doesn't get to do much in the bakery. Sometimes he gets to measure, but usually that's Rye's job. All he gets to do is dump ingredients in the mixer. Then move it into pans. The ovens are off limits, so he has to wait for his father or brothers to do the rest.

One thing his father has noticed is Peeta's attention to detail. Simeon doesn't have an eye for it, and Rye doesn't have the patience, but Peeta can recreate even the most elaborate of sugar flowers. Which is why Peeta also gets to help decorate the cakes.

He sits down at his station and picks up one of the fondant roses that have been drying over night. He mixes some food coloring into a glass of water and dips his brush in. Starting at the base of the flower, he lets the color fade toward the edge of the petal with a light stroke. It ends up too dark, and frustrated, he crumbles the delicate flower in his fist. He shuts his eyes tightly and tries to calm his breath.

Both of his brothers are eligible for the Reaping this year, and there's nothing Peeta can do about it.

He sets the flower aside, and picks up a new one, taking care to apply a lighter hand. Peeta really likes to paint. He finds it soothing, and he feels like he's in control for once, putting into life what he can only see in his head.

"This one's broken," Rye says, flicking the crumbled flower across the smooth table.

"I know."

"Well you better fix it," he says as he crosses the room to slide Peeta's waiting cakes into the ovens.

"It's fine, I'll make another one," Peeta says, putting the final touches on the one in his hand before moving on to the next one.

"With what? You think we've got fondant growing on trees in the backyard? That stuff's expensive."

Peeta hates when Rye talks like their mother. "I'll think of something," he says.

"The mayor wants twelve roses on his cake. You better think of roses."

"I will!" he says, getting irritated. "Now shut up and let me think."

"Here, I'll fix it," Rye says, grabbing the brush from Peeta's hand. He dabs it in buttercream and starts reapplying the petals. It looks terrible.

"Stop! You're ruining it!"

Rye holds it out of his grasp. "You already did that plenty."

"Dad told me that I could do it, not you," Peeta counters.

"Well that's because Dad is too nice to you. You need more character, or else you'll end up a dumb kid. How far will that get you? Imagine you in the arena trying to fend off Careers with your paintbrush because Daddy said that you could."

"Like you'd do any better?"

"I would," Rye says, preening in a way that makes Peeta want to smack him.

"Yeah, well I hope you get reaped then," Peeta barks back.

Rye's face goes pale as Peeta's words sink in, and soon, Peeta feels his own cheeks go pale. Tears well in Peeta's eyes until it's too blurry to see. He can't believe he just said that. The Reaping is next week and he just said that.

He runs upstairs and locks himself in their room and cries into his pillow through dinner. He doesn't want his brother to die. He should never have said it.

......

_Age 11_

The peel is heavy and the handle is rough, leaving blisters on his palms. Peeta bends his knees and uses all his might to slide the last batch of bread into the oven. It's nearly 8PM and they're still behind on orders, having worked through dinner to meet the demand. Peeta's never been so tired in his life, and his stomach growls, begging to be fed.

He eyes the rack of cooling bread. Nobody would miss  _one_  dinner roll, he thinks. his mouth watering at the sight of it. He glances towards the back door where his mother is sweeping the stray flour off the porch.

His fingers wiggle at his sides, ready to pounce. One. Two. Thre --

"What do you think you're doing?" his mother shouts, and he freezes, blood draining in anticipation of her blow. "Get out of here! Go! You want me to call the Peacekeepers, you Seam brat?" He notices now that she's shouting outside, waving her broom threateningly toward their intruder. "You're worse than rats, pawing through someone's trash like that. What do you have to say for yourself? Huh?"

There's no reply, and Peeta finds himself walking toward the door, desperate to see the scene. That's when their eyes meet. Katniss Everdeen, backing away from their trash bin, body limp beneath a leather jacket that must weigh more than her at this point. 

Her father died three months ago. Everyone in town knows about it. They held a memorial at the Justice Building where family members received medals along with what his mother referred to as  _handouts._  "Nobody else in that house can pick at rocks for a living? We've all been slaving away to feed this district because we support ourselves. Leaches, the entire lot is."

Peeta doesn't dare say anything to his mother. Instead, he backs away towards the ovens where the latest batch of bread is almost finished, and instead of sliding them out with his peel, he shoves them to the back of the oven, where the flames from the fire beneath quickly scorch it. The smell of ash infects the kitchen in an instant.

"What are you doing?" his mother roars, pushing him aside to save the ruined loaves.

"I'm sorry, it slipped," he lies. 

"We're still two dozen loaves short for tomorrow and you pull a stunt like this?" she cries, her voice desperate. The loaves are smoldering when she finally fishes them out and she lets them fall to the floor to avoid burning her hands. "Feed it to the pig, you stupid creature! Why not? No one decent will buy burnt bread."

Peeta scrambles to pick up the fallen loaves, but they're still too hot and he flinches before dropping them again. She strikes him with the handle of the peel, cracking it against his cheek bone. "Do you want to be like the trash rats out there? That's what'll happen if you keep throwing away our livelihood." She slaps him across the other cheek. "Think! You stupid thing."

The rain is deafening, it's coming down so hard, and it takes him a moment to spot her beneath the apple tree, but she's there, cowering like a scared animal. He steps out from beneath the awning, farther than necessary to reach the pig trough, and begins to pick away the burnt crust. If it's not decent to sell like that, then it isn't decent to give it to her like that either.

He takes his time, glancing toward the kitchen to see if his mother is still watching. The bell from the shop rings, and even though it's past closing, his mother is eager to make the sale. He checks the window one last time. 

One. Two. Three. 

And the loaves are out of his hands.

......

_Age 12_

The shirt he wears is too big and the buttons have all been reattached with different color threads. It's been passed down through both of his brothers, as has all of his clothing. Peeta's small for his age though, and the shirts and slacks appropriate for the Reaping Ceremony don't fit. How can you send a kid into a murder ring when he can't even keep his pants up?

He holds his breath. He really doesn't want to be picked.

He's standing with boys his own age, but he'd really rather be standing with his brothers. Rye's name is in there 3 times and Simeon 5, but that's still not nearly as many as most the Seam kids who have taken out tesserae.

He wonders how many times Katniss's name is in the bowl. 4, probably. And every year that number will multiply, while he's fretting over a small hand full of slips. 

A Seam girl and boy are picked, and he's disgusted with himself when he's relieved, because it's only some Seam kids again. But that Seam kid could be  _her_  now, and it only reminds him of how  _real_  all the tributes are before they're taken to the Capitol and never come back.

How many times are all of their names in that reaping bowl? And here he's worrying over a couple little slips.

......

_Age 13_

"What do you think about Lillian Carlyle?" Peeta's friend Jake asks him discreetly from across the lunch table.

Peeta follows Jake's line of sight, catching Lillian watching them back. She smiles shyly, her ashen cheeks flushing before she looks away.

"She's pretty," Peeta says, because she is. She's got the type of freckles that dust across her nose, and her wavy blonde hair always looks like it's been swept up by the wind only to fall back into place perfectly.

"I'm thinking about asking her out."

"Then do it," Peeta says before biting into his apple.

"I think she likes you."

He chews slowly. "Oh," he says.

"Do you like her?"

He looks at her again. He  _could_.

"No, it's fine," Peeta says.

Jake sighs. "What about Dahlia?"

She's pretty too. Peeta won't lie, he finds all the girls at school pretty. He really isn't picky. And most of them are really nice too. 

He realizes that he wouldn't mind holding hands or spending time with a girl like Lillian or Dahlia. They'd probably have a good time.

But no matter how much he thinks about other girls, his mind can't help settling on the thought of holding Katniss Everdeen's  hand.

......

_Age 14_

"Be quiet, will you? You sound like you're trying to kick over all the trees," Rye hisses as they creep through the brush on the outskirts of town.

Peeta scowls at his brother. "It's not my fault they keep getting in the way," he says, taking care to lift and drop his feet more carefully, but it's dark and the ground is uneven, and soon he's stomping just as loudly as before.

"Is it a right or a left?" Rye says, coming to an abrupt stop.

Peeta frowns. "I don't remember."

"You said you've been before."

"When I was seven!" Peeta counters. "When it was light out, and Simeon was leading the way."

"Let's go right. I think I hear the fence over there."

Peeta rolls his eyes. Rye can't hear the fence because the fence is never on. He follows anyway.

"Are you sure they even have white liquor," Peeta says.

"Old man Abernathy's got to get it from somewhere. I heard some Seam boys say they buy it from this witch looking lady named Ripper. And if she's not at the market, then she must be here."

"It's over that hill," Peeta says, pointing straight ahead.

The Hob is even duskier than the last time Peeta was there, with a sagging roof balanced on a couple of posts to keep it from collapsing completely. At night, the place is lit by gas lanterns, which seems really dangerous with all the dried out wood and coal dust lingering in the air.

"Look for bottles," Rye instructs him dumbly, grimacing as he passes a table of cow feet and goat brains. "You think they eat this?" he asks Peeta, looking green.

"What else are they going to eat? The butcher sells all the good parts to us."

Rye flashes him a look that reminds him of their mother. "They could buy good meat too, if they wanted to."

Peeta bites his tongue.

"I think I see her over there," Rye says, his pace quickening as he maneuvers down the dark pathway. 

Rye stops short just in front of her booth and Peeta quickly understands why. The woman only has one arm. His brother's wide blue eyes meet his.  _How are we supposed to talk to it?_  the look implies. Peeta won't lie, he feels uncomfortable too, and he does his best to flash her a friendly smile, when in reality, he probably looks insane.

"We want a bottle of the white stuff," Rye says, finally gaining the courage.

"I don't sell to kids," she says flatly.

"We've got credits. A bunch. How much do you want for it?" Rye says, jingling his pocket to make the coins sing.

"Where did you get those?" Peeta whispers through gritted teeth. If he swiped those from the register they're as good as dead. Peeta's heart begins to pound in his chest. Their mother is going to murder them.

"I earned it," Rye says with a proud smirk. "Added a surcharge for Peacekeepers and government folk on all their orders. Money's nothing to them."

"Forty credits," Ripper says.

Rye looks incredulous. "Forty? You just sold a jug to that guy for a cup full of nails."

"It'll be fifty if you give me anymore lip."

"He didn't mean anything by it," Peeta jumps in. "We'll throw in some bread if you like, but you'll have to come by the store. It's better if it's still hot."

Rye glare at him and empties his pocket into Ripper's hand before he takes the bottle. It's obvious he was expecting a bigger one, but he doesn't push the matter further.

"You going to drink that all by yourselves?" A warm voice asks from the next booth over. Haddy Edwards, a Seam girl from Rye's year.

"We're going to try," Peeta says, earning a jab in his ribs from his brother.

"We could use some company, if you're interested," Rye says.

She lifts an eyebrow. "I may have a few friends," she says. "You know where the Heap is?"

"Sure do," he says too cheerfully.

Peeta's eyes narrow. "Where's the Heap?" he murmurs.

"Don't be stupid, shut up!" Rye says, ushering them away. "You're going home."

"What? Why? I want to go to the Heap."

"You're too young."

"I can handle myself around a couple of girls."

Rye looks him over, his jaw going square. He straightens the collar on Peeta's shirt. "Fine. You can come. Just don't blow it, all right?"

The Heap is the retired slag heap outside one of the old mining sites. Everything Peeta touches is covered in coal dust, and the more he tries to wipe away the ash, the more it seems to spread.

Haddy and her friends have a fire pit roaring at the base of the hill. There are three other girls with her, including her younger sister Scilla, who's a year behind Peeta.

"I brought some mint tea," Haddy says. "It's a good chaser when it's cold."

Peeta nods like he knows what she's talking about, and then takes a swig from the white liquor bottle when it's passed to him. It tastes terrible, and he feels like he's going to cry, the liquid burns so bad. He suppresses the urge to cough, and grins like it didn't hurt, even passing on the mint tea, because that's what his brother does.

The liquor isn't so bad after a few more sips, and Peeta starts to feel pleasantly warm, even without the fire. Rye calls him to his side of the circle, and Peeta figures it's because he wants the liquor, but instead he tugs on his arm to murmur discreetly in his ear, "Scilla's yours."

"What?" Peeta stammers.

Haddy's sitting across Rye's lap so it's hard to have a conversation without including her. She laughs breezily and tightens her arms around Rye's neck. "She's looking to have a good time, same as all of us. And she thinks you're the cutest boy at school. You can show her a good time, can't you Peeta?"

He blinks a few times and realizes how dizzy the liquor has made him. His steps are heavier than before, and when he finally sits -- more like falls, back into his seat, Scilla is curled into his side, her lips soft and warm against his neck.

Peeta has kissed a girl before. He's had two girlfriends already, and while it had mostly been hand holding and boasting to others about how they were a couple, there was kissing too. It was the chaste kind, behind the school building or at her doorstep, and sometimes it got a little heavier if her mom wasn't home, but the girls were never wrapped so closely, and they never smelled like mint and liquor, and there hands were definitely never creeping up his thigh.

He looks to Rye for some direction, but him and Haddy have stumbled off somewhere, leaving Peeta clueless with a stranger's hand on his crotch and two drunk girls laughing at them wolfishly.

"You want to go somewhere more private?" he asks Scilla, because the last thing he wants right now is an audience.

"Sure," she slurs.

They don't go far, just outside the edge of the firelight, and she pushes him unceremoniously against the mound of coal waste.

It's at this point he realizes how tiny she is. Her waist is small enough in his hands for his fingers to touch, and her hipbone is jagged against his pelvis. He's afraid he'll break her in half if he touches her.

"Is everything okay?" she asks when he fails to kiss her back.

"Yeah, sorry," he says, moving to tangle his fingers in her raven hair. The same color as Katniss's. He closes his eyes tightly.

"What's wrong?" she says, looking up at him with familiar slate eyes.

"Nothing," he says, pulling her into his lap and pushing all other thoughts from his mind. "Keep going."

......

_Age 15_

Peeta stretches his arms across his chest and twists his neck until he feels the joint crack. Across the gymnasium, the chairman updates the scoreboard for the next set of matches. As Peeta had suspected, he and Rye are top seeds, and won't face off yet.

He still can't believe that Rye weaseled into his weight class. Sure, Peeta's growth spurt had something to do with it, but Peeta didn't spend the last 2 days sweating off water weight specifically so he could kick his baby brother's ass in front of the whole school.

Peeta's quicker than Rye though. He's smarter. He can beat him.

He wins his next match with ease, and the pool of competitors again dwindles. The applause in the crowd is getting louder and Peeta thinks,  _Of course. It's winter and this is one of the only buildings with heat. Of course, they'd all stay for the wrestling match._

"You scared?" Rye says, draping his arm around his brother's as the coach slider their names into the final match.

"No," Peeta says stubbornly. "Just fight fair, all right?"

"I always do," he says, ruffling Peeta's hair playfully.

Peeta glowers at him and smooths down his curls.

"Good luck, Peeta!" Delly calls from the stands. He searches for her, spotting her in the second row with some other kids from town, including the mayor's daughter. And when Madge is around, chances are...

His eyes widen when he spots Katniss Everdeen sharing a popcorn with her sister and their eyes lock for a millisecond before they both look away.

"Great," he mumbles to no one. He stretches at his spandex singlet, which feels suffocatingly tight, and then readjusts himself. He's probably done it over a dozen times this afternoon, but now he knows she can see him. "Great," he grumbles again.

"Mellark and Mellark to the mat."

Peeta steps to his corner and shakes hands with the ref then with Rye.

He glances at the crowd. Looks at Katniss. Looks away.

The ref blows his whistle and the boys begin to circle.

"Don't go low, you're not as solid as you think," Rye says, slipping his hand toward his waist to trap him in a hold, which Peeta quickly breaks.

"Don't get too cocky when you go for the takedown. You'll break your back trying to throw me over your head."

Rye pounces again and gets underneath him this time. The two stumble to the mat, and Rye gets Peeta's shoulder down. One point. Peeta shifts and rolls to break the hold, but his other arm goes down. Two points.

He finally breaks the hold and flips Rye over, lifting him from his feet, pinning him solid. Three points to two.

The first round ends. All he has to do is tie the second and he's won.

They step from their corners and shake hands. Peeta glances at the crowd. Looks at Katniss for a second longer. He thinks about smiling at her, but he hasn't won yet. He looks away. Then looks back. She's smiling at him. The whistle blows. He thinks about smiling back. There's an arm around his leg. He hits the mat so hard, he thinks his neck may be broken.

Five points.

......

_Age 16_

He wonders if she notices the way she kisses him. Like if he was going to pretend to kiss someone, he'd probably be consistent. It would be mechanical. Two pairs of lips pressing together. Maybe he'd throw in something different with his hands sometimes. Put them on her cheek. At her waist. In her hair. Nothing too crazy. Just enough to throw off the visual.

Katniss doesn't kiss him like that though. She  _kisses_  him. All pouted lips and deep sighs and fingers curled into his suit jacket like she wouldn't be able to stand without him. So Peeta kisses her back with the same abandon. Kisses her until he forgets that they're only pretending.

It's confusing. Especially since they started sharing a bed.

He stares at the ceiling, watching the light flicker as their train hurdles toward the next district.

He sleeps better beside her. He does. Before he'd spent the night wandering the train, or painting his nightmares onto canvas so they wouldn't follow him anymore.

But sometimes, well sometimes, she'll hitch her leg over his and straddle one thigh, and he'll feel her hips roll ever so slightly, and he'll find himself spending the next hour staring rock hard at the ceiling.

He slides from beneath her to sit on the edge of the bed.  _Stupid creature_! He thinks, scrubbing his hands over his face.  _Can't even get a Seam brat to love you._

That isn't fair. He shakes his mother's voice from his head. None of this is fair.

He pulls on his shoes, struggling with the one caught on his prosthetic foot. The rocking of the train doesn't help, and he has to catch himself on the bedpost to keep from falling. Stupid leg.

He looks back at Katniss's sleeping form, curled into the spot that he's left, and he hates the way his heart still melts at the sight of her. Sometimes he wonders if it would have been better to die an ignorant fool in the arena, than to live the life he is now.

Why'd she have to save him.

Why would she start all of this to save him?

"Where are you going?" she murmurs dreamily. 

"Nowhere," he says. "A quick walk. I was going to raid the kitchen car."

"You need company?"

"No, get some sleep."

He creeps back to his train car to stand beneath a cold stream of water, but when he's dried off and dresses, he passes his own bed and heads straight for hers.

......

_Age 17_

Peeta bends over to touch his toes, stretching out his aching muscles between drills. He tries not to glace at the shooting range, but his eyes keep drifting there on their own. He steps into line with the rest of his troop.

"Where's Squad 451?" he asks Carpenter in an offhanded tone. "Didn't feel like showing off today?"

Carpenter smirks at him. "They deployed. Wanted to get some pretty action shots in the Capitol."

Peeta's heart stops. "Deployed? When did they leave?"

"This morning," he says, right as Major Thompson blows his whistle and they take off.

"Did Everdeen go with them?" he asks, even though he shouldn't care.

"There's no point in going without her."

Peeta falls behind, his mind too cloudy to make his feet move. His hands begin to shake with the buzz of tracker jacker venom. She's gone. Katniss is gone. And knowing her, she doesn't plan on coming back.

That stupid pride of hers, taking off to play hero when there are people who still need her.

He can't pretend to be a soldier any longer and he turns abruptly, jogging toward the main hatch.

"Let him go," he hears Major Thompson shout behind him.

Peeta still can't remember where anything is in this godforsaken hellhole, but after winding down a few corridors, he finally finds what he's looking for.

"Why'd you let her go?" he barks, practically knocking Haymitch back into his chair.

"I see news travels fast around here," Haymitch says in that infuriatingly smug voice of his. "Shouldn't you have handlers?"

"Suppose I don't need them anymore, now that she's not around."

Haymitch gestures for him to take a seat and offers him tea, but Peeta isn't interested in distractions.

"She's going to make a real mess of things out there," he says.

Haymitch chuckles. "Don't I know it. What else could we do though?"

"Send me," Peeta says plainly. "You all seem to find me dangerous enough with the shackles and whatnot."

"Right, the powder keg and the spark, a perfect combination in times like these. You two have blown up enough plans."

"You want usable footage? Put me on camera, we all know how useless Katniss is when it comes to smiling pretty and reading off a script. Keep her in a bunker until this all blows over and send me on the front line. No one will shed a tear if the Capitol offs me." Who cares? He's got no one left.

"What about when you short circuit and start offing other members of the squad?" Haymitch counters.

"Then they'll last slightly longer than when Katniss decides to lead them on a suicide mission." Peeta feels his heart begin to beat faster. It feels like the floor has slipped from beneath him and he desperate to hold onto something, anything, before it all fades away. "She went there to die, Haymitch."

"She was bound to get it right eventually," he says darkly.

"We can't let her do it," Peeta says, even though the words sound foreign to him. "Please."

Haymitch sighs and nods his head slowly. "I'll see what I can do."

......

_Age 18_

Today would have been Reaping Day.

It's his first thought when his eyes open, and it's the kind of thought that makes him want to bury his head beneath his pillows and wait for tomorrow.

The bed is warm beside him and he reaches for Katniss to pull her against his chest. They don't speak. They only lay there in the sterile silence.

His brothers couldn't have been reaped today, they're too old. They were too old the year before too, when the firebombs got them. They were free from the Reaping and they died anyway. And Peeta's still here.

He was so terrified of his name being called, and that's what ended up saving him.

"I don't want to get up today," Katniss says hollowly. 

"That's fine," he says, smoothing her shorn hair behind her ear. "We don't have to."

"I should though," she says, her voice choking on a sob. "Otherwise I'll never get up."

He kisses her between her shoulder blades. "We'll get up tomorrow," he says. "Keep me company today."

She rolls onto her side to face him and rests her damp cheek against his chest.

"You should tell me a story," Peeta says, his fingers gliding smoothly up and down her arm.

"I always tell you stories," she says tiredly. "You should tell me a story."

He chuckles. "I don't have any stories."

"Then make one up."

He stares up at the ceiling, while he draws patterns across her back. "I tried to catch a frog once," he says.

She laughs. "Did you?" she says flatly.

He tightens his arm around her waist. "I did. I was with my brother." 

Her body relaxes against his side. "You never talk about your family," she says.

"I guess I don't."

"Tell me about your brothers," she says, and then sounding unsure adds, "if you want to."

He grins. "You would hate them," he says. "Or at least I did, most of the time." He takes a deep breath. "But you'd kind of like them too."


End file.
